KUALA LUMPUR – The Education Ministry (MoE) will discontinue any forms of competition, celebration or ceremony at all levels – involving events that do not have a significant impact on student learning but added on to the workload of teachers. This will begin in the 2023/2024 school session.
Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek cited examples of the resource centre cheerfulness (keceriaan) competition, the best toilet, the best textbook loan scheme awards, and others.
She said the decision was among the seven immediate steps taken in MoE’s fifth thrust, which focuses on teacher welfare, and includes addressing pressure teachers face based on the initial report received.
“All these steps will be detailed by the top management of the MOE and will be implemented from the 2023/2024 school session. The ministry is always committed to ensuring the well-being of teachers,” she said in a statement today.
She said among other measures which were decided, was to reduce the frequency of the review of school management elements of the Malaysian Education Quality Standard involving teachers, to only once a year.
“Another measure is to set a more flexible lock-in time for student attendance records for teachers, which is 12pm for morning sessions and 5pm for afternoon sessions, to avoid congestion in the system," she said.
In addition, Fadhlina said public examination invigilators’ appointment by the Examinations Board and the Malaysian Examinations Council is open to those other than serving teachers, such as government retirees, students from the Institute of Teacher Education or other higher learning institutions.
However, they still need to meet the set criteria, said Fadhlina.
The ministry will also limit the organisation of the annual Teachers’ Day celebration to the national and school levels. Besides that, it will also set a summary of the daily lesson plan at MoE-level to ensure that it meets the requirements of the ministry’s Circular No. 3/1999 which includes elements of objectives, teaching and reflection.
She added that the seventh measure is to strengthen teachers’ autonomy in the planning and implementation of teaching and learning, as well as classroom-based assessment by using the Standard Curriculum and Assessment Document as a reference. – Bernama, February 18, 2023
